


Still

by QueenofDisaster



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Anal Sex, Fights, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Riding, Season 4 but Flint still has hair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:31:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9614276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenofDisaster/pseuds/QueenofDisaster
Summary: Hate is spitting out each other's mouths, but we're still sleeping like we're lovers.





	1. Howl

'Spiralling down.  
Biting words like a wolf howling.  
Hate is spitting out each other's mouths.  
But we're still sleeping like we're lovers.'  
(Still - Daughter)

 

Tension runs thick in the air between them, viscous and oppressive. They have not clashed in this way since they were strangers to each other, battling for their lives and their futures in the foreboding shadows of the wrecks. 

When their trust was strengthened, and their dependency on each other exposed, they had fallen into a comfortable understanding. As quartermaster and captain, they argued about tactics, argued over food stores and careening. Each tiff would ebb just as quickly as it flared.

Tonight was different. 

They burned and they bled and they felt like they could never stop. 

With his hands fisted in Flint's coat, he pulls him close and pushes him away, fire kindling in his eyes. Flint gives as good as he gets, his hands holding onto Silver's wrists like a vice until his bones creak.  
The men in their camp give their tent a wide berth, unable to stand the raucous roars and spitting, cutting words.  
They have been like this for hours, and just when they begin to cool, one word or an impassioned glance sends them back into battle.  
A battle against each other where they don't know if they will come out unscathed.

Silver slams his fist down on the wooden table, upending a cup onto the dirt floor of their shared tent, red wine pooling out like blood. Flint stares down at him from across the small space, a sneer curling his lips, revealing a sinister flash of teeth. In his eyes, he was a predator among prey. 

Silver mirrors his contemptuous gaze, rubbing at his bearded chin. He is exhausted, from this war, from this fight, yet he can not foresee any end. They are both too proud of men to cower to each other. Even if they are partners, they refuse to give over that power to each other. 

"Your inlfated ego fuels your insolence!" Silver spits at him and Flint bristles, mouth parted to refute, but in particular Silver fashion, he is not finished speaking. "An alliance, cannot remain an alliance, if one party sees himself as their monarch!"

He is trying to remain rational, fighting the temptation to resort to hurtful words that would surely only stoke this fire. It has been two weeks since his return to the camp, his return from the dead, the men like to boast. And within that time, Silver has percieved the growing threat of Flint's behaviour and his stubbornly malignant tone. Not to mention his condescension toward his so called 'allies'. 

Flint takes a menacing step towards him. Silver glares him down, just daring him to give into his anger and take a swing. He can see it, brewing in his sea glass eyes. But that would be a grave mistake. 

Flint has raised his hand to him before. But never struck down for good reason. 

Silver has been beaten into submission all his life. In the boy's home where he grew up, on ships, by his crew, by his so-called friends and lovers. He has always brushed them aside. Violence is a part of life. 

But, coming from Flint, any real violence beyond words and rough handling, he would never brush aside.  
Furthermore, every man in their camp knows what is happening within this canvas. How could they not? With the noise they are making and the conduct of the men that rival gossiping mistresses. If by dawn, Silver leaves his lodgings, sporting a bruise and a broken heart, Flint would be the one to bear their contempt. 

But the main reason his anger stays with him, is simply for the fact that Flint cannot unleash it upon Silver in that way. It would kill him to do so.

"What about you? Long John Silver, the King of Pirates? Does that not mean you rule over us, over me?" He says instead.

Silver shakes his head, his hair flicking over his shoulders. They have had this arguement before, he is sure, but not to this degree.  
"No, it doesn't." He replies firmly, through gritted teeth. "I am merely on the front lines of our endevour. I am the face of it." 

"You are propelling yourself towards more power than you can handle." Flint continues, as if Silver hasn't spoken at all. He groans, feeling the overwhelming need to pull out his hair in frustration.

"I cannot believe what you are saying! Propelling myself?" Silver pulls himself from his stool, his makeshift crutch tucked under his arm. "I didn't ask for any of this! Not one aspect, even from the beginning." He takes an uneven step forward, finger pointing accusingly at Flint. "I didnt ask for your ship to board mine. I didn't ask for starvation, for beatings, for hatred!"  
Now they are standing less than a foot apart. So close Flint can feel Silver's breath puffing against his face as he speaks.  
"I didn't ask to lose my leg, my independence." His voice trembles slightly and Flint's snarl softens. "I didn't ask to be your quartermaser. And I certainly didn't ask for a crown-" He postiviely growls the word. "or the responsibility of leading men to their deaths!" 

By the end of his spiel, Silver is shaking, drawing in heavy breaths to quell his emotions.  
Flint watches him closely, scrutinises him. It shocks Silver momentarily, causing him to take a cautionary step backwards. 

"But you did ask to be a part of my crew." He says, infuriationgly calm all of a sudden. Silver wants to scream. "You pushed yourself forward, to stand at my side as an equal. Are you saying that is another misgiving forced upon you?" He asks, like it is all so easy.

Silver wants to swing his crutch at him. 

"Stop twisting my words to fight against me." He clutches the open front of Flint's sweat-soaked shirt in his fist. Flint doesn't pull out of his grip. "If you were not here, I would never have dragged myself up that beach. There would have been no point in the matter. I wouldn't have used every ounce of strength I had to pull myself from the bottom of the ocean." Silver looks into Flint's cold eyes, his lips in a tight line. "Because there would be no Long John Silver, without Captain Flint." 

With that he releases him, chest clenched tight at the man's blank expression, and obvious impartiality towards his words. Silver turns his back, unwilling to let him see the rawness of his expression. 

"Do you really think it fair to put your life in my hands that way?" Flint says in a low rumble from behind. 

Without turning, Silver replies, feeling defeated. "It is how it is."

"No." Flint replies, stubbornly. Now Silver faces him again, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Excuse me?" He asks, dumbfounded by the change in the air around them.

"I will not accept that." Flint pursues, stoking that fire once more. 

"I am nothing without you." John forces himself to say, even though it makes him ache to do so. Flint clasps his hands behind his back, shoulders tight and expression quizzical.  
"You say this with such certainty, it as if you see me with a pistol raised to your head right now?" He says and John collapses back onto his stool. 

"I have done terrible things since I met you. If I saw myself just two years before now. If that version of me, saw this-" He motions towards himself, towards a murderous pirate king and an invalid. "He would surely fall to your crew's sword than make the mistake of manipulating his way into your fold." Silver's chin drops to his chest, refusing to look Flint in the eye. He is afraid of what he might see there, but more so what he might not see reflecting back at him. 

"You regret everything?" Flint speaks quietly, a drastic contrast to the roars that had bellowed between them previously that night.  
Silver wishes this wasn't happening. They were on shaky grounds, one wrong word could crush them.

"Not everything." It is a mere whisper.

"But you blame me for all of your transgressions, these 'terrible things' you have done since we met?" Flint's voice was infuriatingly even, devoid of any emotion.  
Raising his chin, blue eyes damp and lost, Silver finally looks up at Flint.

"You are a moral poison, James Flint." He says. 

Flint stares at him for an agonising few seconds before he flies out of the tent.  
The swish of the canvas seems like the only sound for miles.  
In the deafening silence that ensues, Silver crumbles.


	2. Whimper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The makeup.

Black liquid waves caress the colourless sand at his feet.   
It is strange how the bright light of the moon sucks the life from the beach, leaving it a cold, grey-scale wasteland. 

The moon has taken all the colour from his life, and all the fight from his heart. 

Although his blood has settled in his veins, heat still flushes his cheeks red and draws sweat from his brow. 

Stepping out of his clothes, he meticulously folds them in a pile that he leaves on the sand. 

The water feels like a baptism as it cascades over his head. 

The gentle rolls of the waves soothe his soul. Because this is home. 

He wonders what it would feel like to just let the inky current take him. What a relief it would be to sink into its depths and let water fill his lungs and expel his sorrows. 

Thoughts firmly on John, he slicks back his hair and sighs. 

He is constantly in turmoil when it comes to that man. Things used to be a great deal simpler between them, when they were just Captain and Quartermaster, instead of Captain Flint and Long John Silver. 

This war with civilisation has already taken so much from him. Maybe he should cut his losses, and let Neptune drag him into his depths, to avoid any further damage. 

Such thoughts are not unusual for him. When that bullet pierced through Miranda's skull, he saw that part of himself die with her. James McGraw, a lost man. 

After Charlestown, Flint had stood by an open window in his quarters, staring out into the endless swirling depths of the sea he was born to conquer. The window was wide enough for him to easily climb through, if he wished. 

An empty decanter of rum still in his hand, Flint had grasped the windowsill in one hand, and was close enough to feel the salty spray carried by the wind, hit his skin. 

But a small noise stopped him. Silver. 

Taking a stumbling step back from his death, he watched the man toss his head about, lost in a fever dream. His hair was limp with sweat and his skin was ghostly pale. 

He stared at him for a long moment, before shutting the window to keep the crisp air from hitting John, and settled back at his desk. 

James hasn't thought about that particular night in a very long time. At the time he did not know the meaning of his own actions, or his reaction to leaving John in pain. 

Now, he knows. Now, he is completely, and utterly devoted to John Silver. 

Trudging his way back to shore, a shiver runs down his spine and arms as the breeze drags over his wet skin. 

Walking back through the grassy dunes, his shirt and trousers cling to him in the spots where the wind had not dried him. 

There are only a few lamps back at camp whose light still lingers in the dead of night. Coated in shadow, James knows the walk to his tent, and doesn't have to strain to see through the darkness. 

Warm light filters through the cracks in the canvas, a beacon amongst the black. James draws it to one side, standing in the threshold. 

Inside, there is only one lamp lit by the bed, casting John in a sea of soft shadows. His hair is wet, heavy ringlets dropping onto his naked shoulders. 

John looks at him, book open over his lap where the blanket has been drawn. 

With no immediate rejection, James deems it safe to move further in, letting the canvas drop behind him, bringing them back into their own little world. 

John's eyes watch him curiously as he sets down his weapon's belt and heavy jacket. 

"Where did you go?" John's voice in unbearably soft. James sits on the edge of the cot, back turned to him and sighs. 

"Down by the water." He replies, a tingle going through him as John brushes his fingers through the wet hair at the nape of his neck. 

"Do you hate me? For what I said?" John hooks his chin over the meat of his shoulder, azure eyes wide and uneasy. 

James turns his head to meet his gaze. Before he second guesses himself, he tilts his jaw to press their lips together. It's gentle, and excruciatingly slow. 

When they pull back, John's face blooms into a small, genuine smile.   
Dexterous fingers unlace the ties of his shirt, rucking the material to his chest, until he lifts his arms so that John can toss the material away. 

James sighs as John presses his chest to the bare skin of his back, tan arms coming to curl around his shoulders. 

It's an intimate embrace, oddly vulnerable, even though they aren't even facing each other. 

Fingers trail over the skin of his chest, running through the red hair dusting his pecs. John shifts around on his knees, gently drawing James' head back to rest on his shoulder. 

James goes willingly, exposing the delicate skin of his neck, handing over his trust to John. 

"James." He murmurs, hand trailing up to hold onto his throat delicately. 

"What?" He rumbles and he can feel John's smile against his cheek. 

"I just like saying your name, haven't you noticed?" He whispers, thumbing through the rough hairs of James' trim beard. That draws a pleased hum from James, his eyes drifting close, surrendering to his ministrations. 

"I didn't mean any of it." John says, regretfully. James blinks his eyes open to stare at him. 

"Some of it, maybe. But it's okay." James cups John's cheek, bringing him closer to slot their mouths together. They kiss languidly, as if they had all the time in the world, tongues slowly teasing each other into play and lips a silky drag.

They are rarely this slow, this delicate. Most of their previous trysts were heavy with passion, harsh breathing and rushed pleasure. Already, this is so different. But it is exactly what they need. 

John gently guides him down to lay flat on their cot, before slipping his naked leg between his thighs, draping himself across his torso. They continue their unhurried exploration of each other's mouths, as if it was their first kiss. 

James' palm skates down the heated skin of his bare back to cup the naked swell of his ass, humming deep in his chest. John wriggles closer, the movement pushing his half-hard cock into James' hip. 

How they could touch each other so reverently and carefully after they had been at each other's throats, ready to break necks and tear arteries, just an hour ago was staggering. 

Drawing back from the kiss, John touches James' bottom lip, slick with saliva. His ocean blue eyes are being taken over slowly by the black of his pupils, and his eyelashes are dark charcoal smudges against the tops of his cheeks when he closes his eyes to kiss him again. 

"Why must we crash together so violently?" John whispers against his mouth. 

"I've often found love and hate are very closely related emotions. Often one bleeds into the other." James says, tucking stray damp curls behind John's ear. 

John's eyes are wide, cheeks flushed and lips tantalisingly pink. 

"You love me?" He asks, his voice a deep timbre. James quirks a smile, deepening the lines around his mouth. He cups his hand around the back of John's head, flipping them over so that James is nestled between the radiating heat of his thighs, smiling down at him. 

"I wouldn't fight against you the way I do, if I didn't." James says and John pouts, tilting his head to the side like a confused poodle. 

"Say it." He requests, wrapping his legs around his thighs to keep him close. James lowers himself down onto his elbows bracketing John's head. 

"I love you." He murmurs, bumping their noses together. John's smile splits his face almost in two and without warning, pulls James flush against him and rolls them again. 

John pushes himself up so he's straddling his lap. James takes a moment to just look at him. His eyes flit over his muscled chest and the deep cut of his hips where his cock lays, still semi-erect, against the lacings of James' trousers. 

"It's very rude if you don't say something back." James says, running the tips of his fingers up his flank, smirking when John twitches at the tickle. 

Grabbing James' hands from their teasing, John links their fingers together. 

"I accept your declaration." John squeals when Jame unlinks one hand to pinch the flesh of his ass. 

"Ow! That's going to bruise." John pouts, rubbing at the sore spot. James grins up at him, smugly. 

"If you keep being a shit I'll have to punish you." James warns and John looks delighted. 

"What, Captain?" John plants his hands on James' chest, leaning forward so that his long hair brushes over James' cheeks. "What will you do?" He teases, eyes glinting in the lamp light. 

James grips onto John's plush ass, parting him briefly to press his thumb right over his clenching hole. John twitches again, but the sensation is over too soon. 

"Tell me." James bites along his stubbled jaw. 

"Ah-What if I don't?" He continues to tease and James smacks his cheek, drawing a surprised gasp from John's mouth. 

They've done this before. When the Walrus was still afloat, James had bent John over his desk, pants around his ankles and spanked him until his ass was red and raw and John was reduced to an incoherent puddle. 

Just like before, John's spine twists as he pants, darkened eyes begging him for one more. James eagerly complies to his lover's demands, striking down on the opposite side, and John hums. 

Rubbing his calloused palms over the pinking, sensitive skin, James delights in the moan that rips itself from between John's teeth. 

"You know-" James drawls, mouth turned up in a smirk. "It's not really a punishment if it makes you this hard." James punctuates his teasing by encircling John's now weeping cock in his hand. 

John's back bows, thrusting into James' too-loose grip.   
"James-" His fingers press between James' lips, moaning as he works his tongue over the whirls of the pads of his fingers. 

"I love you too, you torturous bastard." John practically growls, fucking up into James' hand. 

James smiles around his fingers, biting down gently on his knuckles. John replaces his fingers with his tongue, trapping James' hand on his cock between their stomachs. 

John's fingers tug on James' hair, swirling the red strands until he looks like he just rolled out of bed. 

He sits back on the cradle of James' hips and chuckles lightly to himself at James' debauched and bed-raggled state. 

"I bet the men think our silence is due to a murder-suicide situation or a standoff." John drew tight figure-eights with his hips against James' trapped erection, soaking up the stuttered breaths puffing out of James. 

"I-ah, fuck- I think they'll soon find out the truth." 

 

They crash together like waves upon a rocky shore, relentless and devastating. 

John clutches at his hands as he rides him, the slow motions of his hips determined to draw out this blinding pleasure building between them. 

"John." He moans at the hot clench of his ass around his cock and the seemingly endless waves of pleasure rolling through him. 

Releasing himself from John's hold, he uses his strength to tilt John's hips so that when he bucks up into the heat of his body, his cock punches against that spot inside him that makes him scream. 

"Fuck!" John yells, uncaring of them men sleeping in the camp, uncaring of how they perceive them and their dependency on each other. Fuck them. Fuck them all. They will never have anything close to this. 

James' head thumps back on the cot as John bounces on his cock, chasing his own satisfaction. Body twisting and rippling as he moves, John Silver looks like heaven and sin immortalised. 

Sweat trails lines down his back as he edges closer to the precipice, drinking in the sight of James beneath him. 

James bites down on his lip, hips bucking intermittently, like he can't help himself.   
"James." He whines, eyes screwed shut as James' hand grips the base of his cock. 

John is mindless, fucking up into James' tight hold on his weeping cock and thrusting down so that James is abusing that bundle of nerves deep inside. 

He loves it when John loses control like this, becomes incoherent and lost in sensation. It's addictive. 

"Please." John gasps through his blood flushed lips. 

"I've got you." James says, as John's sobbing breaths turn into cries, his eyes screwed shut as he pulses over his hand. 

James makes sure to keep his eyes open, he doesn't want to miss the way John' head falls back as his whole body twitches, muscles rippling under golden skin. 

Releasing his softening cock, James' eyes go wide as John resumes his thrusts. 

John folds himself over, slick chest pressed against James' and hands reaching for his face to bring their mouths back together. Tongues dancing messily, James holds John open and fucks up into him, stomach swooping as the grip of his hole wrings him of his orgasm, milking him until he is completely spent. 

John buries his face in James' neck, panting. Slipping out of John, they both moan as his come dribbles down his taint and the insides of his thighs. 

Wrapping his arms tight around his torso, James just holds him until they catch their breath.

 

Tucked at James' side, one leg thrown across his thighs, John draws circles on his chest, playing with the dark red tufts of hair. 

"I have never truly been happy with my life, the choices I made and where they took me." John breaks the silence and James' ginger eyelashes flutter open to gaze at him warmly. "But here, with you, I feel a semblance of peace, that distances me from all that." 

James takes a deep breath, and John can feel it under his cheek.   
"This war is far from over." He says, contemplatively, warm palm caressing John's arm splayed across his ribs. 

"We are far from finished here." John presses a kiss to his collar bone, eyes smiling up at him. "I feel I will never be finished with you." 

James' hand moves to cup his cheek, fingers running through the beard on his chin, marvelling at the transformation of John Silver, both physically and otherwise. 

"I have been at war for most of my life. This, I know will be my last." James begins, voice a mere murmur in the darkness.   
"If by the grace of whatever god is out there, you and I live to see Nassau returned to her former glory, even if you are her King and wish to remain so, I don't believe I would be able to leave you behind." 

John feels his words expanding in his chest, a familiar yet indescribable feeling. 

"I am new to this power, and what it is to wield it. If we survive, and I still sit upon that throne, I cannot tell you if I would want to remain there. For we both know how things can change in a matter of weeks, how people can change with its tides. But even if a tempest surrounds us, nothing can change how I feel about you." James' gaze is weighted, yet unfathomably warm and understanding. 

"But you would not give up a title for me?" James asks and John meets his depthless gaze. 

"If the time comes, and Nassau is free once more, as soon as I am no longer needed to keep her on steady ground, I will give it up. In the mean time, you would stay by my side?" 

As if James was not completely under the spell of John Silver, bound to serve him and throw down his life for him. 

Drawing John into a kiss, James pours his confession into his lips.  
"Of course."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone!!!


End file.
